Since 2020, U.S. dental offices must use amalgam separators to capture mercury when removing old fillings. These devices prevent about five tons of mercury waste yearly from reaching wastewater and oceans. The irony: mercury is banned from the environment but still allowed in patients' teeth.
So in the US in 2017, they wanted to require all of the dental offices and being effective in 2020, every dental office to be installing something called an amalgam separator. And what was happening was that every year about 5,000, or sorry, 5 tons of mercury waste was being put out into the environment. Anytime we were drilling out mercury fillings, it was going into the water and then coming out into the oceans. And that was creating a big issue. It was a requirement that every dental office has to install one of these. That way, when we drill it out, we remove it, gets into these amalgam separators that can be disposed of properly. And which is another crazy concept because it's recognized that mercury is toxic and we don't want it to create harmful effects in the environment, but yet it will still be okay to be put in patients' mouths.
